


Cold Water

by midwich



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Falling In Love, M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, mixed metaphors, strange ideas about prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwich/pseuds/midwich
Summary: You were never afraid of drowning until you fell in love with Hanzo Shimada.





	Cold Water

No one ever taught you how to swim. 

Simply put, no one ever _had_ to. You were born with the knowledge engraved into your bones. Perhaps that was strange for someone born and raised in the desert, but you certainly never thought so.

It came to you as easily as breathing. During the long and arid summer days of your childhood, the only relief you could find was often in the shallows of a cool lake. By the time you were thirteen, you'd swam at least once in every major body of water within a half day's walking or driving distance of Santa Fe — and successfully free dived to the bottom of most of them by seventeen. Being in the water was freeing in a way that nothing else about your life was, so naturally, you were greedy to get as much of it as you possibly could.

Sometimes, you'd stay under the surface for so long that your friends thought you had drowned — your hungry, gangly body swept away by the waters. Their panic always made you laugh. You, drown? How could you?

Even as you grew older, and hopefully a little wiser, their fear of drowning remained incomprehensible to you. You loved and trusted the water like you'd never truly loved or trusted another person before.

At least, that was true until you met _him._

Maybe it's strange how quickly he insinuated himself into your life when you've spent most of it pushing other people away. Maybe it's not. You've come to accept that he breaks all the rules for you. Shatters every fundamental law of the tiny universe contained within your heart and soul.

Here's another one that he broke.

You were never afraid of drowning until you fell in love with Hanzo Shimada.

-

When you first joined Blackwatch, you were forced through a whole slew of mandatory lessons and certifications in various essential skills that you were apparently lacking.

When they brought up the swimming qualification, you couldn't help but laugh.

"I already know how to swim," you said, flashing that careless grin that had always driven every adult around you to fury, and occasionally violence if you were unlucky.

"I'm sure you had many chances to practice swimming in the bush," your personnel officer at the time scoffed. "Have you ever had formal lessons?"

"Nope," you said. "But don't bother, I'm ready for the test. Could even do it right now if you got a pair of trunks for me to borrow. Don't need no goggles."

The officer stared at you for a long moment, obviously disbelieving. Then, they shrugged. "It's your call," they said, lip curling in a familiar way.

Your grin didn't flicker. By that point, you'd already had a lifetime of brushing off contempt just like that. And either way, you were getting exactly what you wanted.

The regulation size long course pool at Watchpoint made you as giddy as a kid.

Ever since Deadlock, you'd been so busy running military-grade weapons and hardware that you hadn't had the chance to really indulge for the longest time — so after only a second's thought, you gave into the urge and cannonballed straight into the deep end. You splashed around for a bit without any particular thought to form or efficiency, rolling out your limbs and luxuriating in the feeling of water on your skin, observers be damned.

"Alright, I'm warmed up," you said eventually, once you'd taken your fill of fun, your body now soft and lazy with euphoria. "Just tell me when to start."

Your personnel officer smirked behind their clipboard as they started the timer. 

They weren't smirking when you emerged from the pool thirty minutes later, after decimating all their previous records.

The expression on their face almost made up for all the aquatic safety training you were still forced to do, even after bypassing the swim lessons.

The safety training was torture. Hours upon hours of sitting in the same stuffy conference room with people you didn't know, staring blankly at an endless series of projector slides exhibiting all the supposed dangers that came with the water — and what you should do if you found yourself face-to-face with one of them.

How to escape a rip current. How to save you and your mission partner from drowning. How to survive falling into cold water.

You were young and reckless enough that you still laughed in the face of death, so of course you found it all hilarious. You weren't afraid of cold water. You'd gone diving into the deepest lakes across New Mexico even during the coldest time of year. You'd gone beneath the frozen surface, swam the entire length or depth of the lake, and then emerged from the same hole in the ice. It was always a shock to the system, sure, but nothing you couldn't handle. Infinitely easier to accomplish than the things people usually expected from you on principle. Honesty. Forgiveness. Trust. Things you could not or would not ever give again.

The lessons trudged on.

Each and every danger that came up was briefly considered and summarily dismissed by you. But regardless, your mind still automatically filed all the survival tips away. Never knew when they might come in handy. Small chance one of them could even save your life someday.

That training goes all but forgotten until two decades later, when you meet Hanzo Shimada. 

He's a cold, regally sculpted enigma of a man. Distant and untouchable to someone like you. Most things are.

But it only takes a handful of missions fighting by his side for you to realize the sheer depths hidden beneath the surface. And once you develop this awareness, you are completely and utterly done for — although it takes some time to realize the extent of the damage.

At first, you start seeking him out more, never one to ignore a new and intriguing challenge. And once you start paying attention, you discover that nearly everything you assumed about Hanzo was wrong. You discover that he is not cold, but merely cautious. Not distant, but merely used to silencing himself. You learn firsthand that he is stubborn and prideful, but also honorable and hardworking to a fault. That he works so hard at trying to do what is right, to be a good person, that he doesn't even see that he already is. But you do.

The more you talk to him, and the more you understand him and trust him, the more you begin to realize just how deep you've fallen. Then, the panic comes. Two decades on, all that aquatic safety training comes rushing back to you in perfect detail. The lessons you took back when you were seventeen echo around in your head, endless recitations advising you on how best to survive.

You grasp at them desperately, like you never have before. Because for the first time in your life, you are terrified of drowning.

For the first time in your life, Jesse McCree, you are in love.

-

This is what you learned in Blackwatch.

Falling into cold water can be deadly. In cold water, the heart must suddenly work twice as hard to pump blood throughout the body. Breathing automatically becomes uncontrolled and gasping, greatly increasing the chances of inhaling water. Wild, panicked movements quickly eat up the rest of your energy.

Before you know it, you're dead.

Cold water shock kills faster than you think. A fifth of people do not survive the first two minutes.

Always remember your cold water training.

Keep calm. Don't struggle. Fight every last one of your instincts. Hyperventilation or heart attack can drown you long before the hypothermia even begins to set in.

You have one minute to get control of your breathing. Ten minutes of meaningful movement before your muscles lock up. An hour before you fall unconscious.

Within that window, you must give your absolute effort. You must do everything in your power to increase your chances of survival, whether that means escaping the water or ensuring your body freezes somewhere visible on the minuscule chance that help will come.

Most important of all, you must never, ever underestimate how dangerous cold water is. With the right threat assessment, you and most others will likely never be called upon to apply this training. And even if you are, now you know exactly what to do.

That is what they taught you in Blackwatch. But they were wrong.

You catalogued Hanzo Shimada as a deadly threat within mere seconds of your very first meeting. After two years of knowing him, that initial assessment is still perfectly accurate — in fact, it's only become increasingly cemented over time. Somehow, someway, he's started provoking all the signs of cold water shock that they drilled into your head, back when you were seventeen.

The sound of his voice makes you short of breath. The sight of his face gives you palpitations. A rare smile is enough to cripple your fine dexterity and motor skills. 

Remember your cold water training.

Keep calm. Don't panic. Fight every last one of your instincts. Hanzo Shimada can kill you faster than you think. At first, you used to wonder how many died by his ruthless hand — later, you wonder more urgently at how many have had their hearts broken after failing to win his.

At this point, you think it'll probably be your heart that goes first.

If Hanzo is the sea, then you, Jesse McCree, are already drowning. You recognized the threat and fell right through the ice anyway. Got swept away by the waters. Forgot how to keep yourself afloat for the first time in your life.

In the end, none of that training was worth a damn.

-

This is what happens on the mission in London.

Eighteen confirmed hostiles. A sniper on the clock tower. You and the team are pinned down south of an abandoned church, but Tracer needs you to move east to the extraction point.

The situation is desperate. Half of the team is seriously injured. All of you are completely exhausted.

You are out of bullets — and even if you weren't, you'd be hard pressed to help deal with the remaining hostiles when your right wrist is throbbing like it's been badly fractured. Probably has.

This is what happens. Hanzo considers the circumstances and rises to meet them. He always does. Twenty eight years of ruthless training to inherit a criminal empire have made him well versed at meeting impossible demands. Now, that demand is to see his team members to safety. Whatever it takes. Whatever he can give. And Hanzo always has more to give. Or at least, you know he's convinced himself that he does, and is willing to drain himself dry in the attempt.

You watch as he steps out from behind cover, heedless of the danger to himself — all so he can aim along the most optimal angle. As though he knows he'll likely only have one chance to get it right. Precious milliseconds pass as he steadies his bow, makes the mental calculations, aims his arrow...and finally, _finally_ calls the dragons.

In a blinding rush of light and pure energy, they burst from his arm. The dragons carve devastation through the streets of King's Row and quickly obliterate every last one of the hostiles.

But not quick enough. Because the sniper in the clock tower still manages to shoot Hanzo in the head before the dragons consume him too.

Hanzo drops like a stone.

You freeze. Somewhere beneath the slow, numbing chill of horror, you are almost surprised. Surprised that he fell at all.

It seems absurd to you that a force as mundane as gravity can act on Hanzo Shimada. It's as though you had, unconsciously, forgotten that the laws of the natural world still applied to this man — this man who could summon ancient spirits on command, who could withstand enough volts to stop an ordinary person's heart ten times over.

This man has already broken all of the rules for you. Why not the rest of the world?

You don't realize that you've rushed out to Hanzo's side until you're already there, knees hitting pavement, cradling his bloody head in your lap, and God there's so much blood, so much more than there ever should be. Your hands do not tremble — they never have — but you are so shaken you can barely see.

Angela is here too, you realize, kneeling on his other side, and her lips are moving at you but you don't have a damn clue what she's saying. Then, there are hands on you, gentle but firm, trying to pull you away, to disentangle your fingers from Hanzo's bloody kyudo gi. You fight it but only automatically, distractedly, the way you might swat away a fly. The hands grow firmer and less gentle.

"—trying to help, McCree," says a voice you know. Familiar and sharp. Genji, your brain helpfully supplies. "Give Angela some space—"

Against your will, you are pulled away. But only just far enough for Angela to work. You watch as she activates a military-issue biotic and sets it by Hanzo's head, engulfing him in its healing field before she begins rapidly cataloguing his injuries. Her hands move quickly but lightly over his bloody face, his neck, his limp body. Then, the glow of her Caduceus staff joins the other biotic.

You watch her but you only see Hanzo. Breath coming tight and fast in your chest. You do not know what you would do if Hanzo died. You realize consciously that this is yet another way in which his very existence threatens you. When, why, and how did you let him become so important?

Remember your training.

Keep calm. Don't lose it. Fight every last one of your instincts. Love can kill you faster than you think. You force yourself to calm down, if only physically.

_One minute to get control of your breathing._

You manage to stop hyperventilating but tightness is still there, locked in your chest, squeezing your heart. You can't stop staring at Hanzo's slack and bloodied face. 

You only look away from him when Angela roughly grabs your arm in the space above his limp body. "He's stable for now, but we need to move to the extraction point. _Now_ , Jesse."

You need to stop thinking. Stop thinking and just listen to her. Hanzo isn't gone yet, so don't be the reason that he is. 

You pick him up carefully, like he's precious beyond measure. Because he is. With the unconscious weight of him in your arms, it's easy to ignore the distant, screaming pain of your fractured right wrist. So you do. You are realizing that you might gladly never shoot a gun again if it means Hanzo stays with you for the rest of your life. The thought is terrifying so you try to repress it for now.

You bring him to the extraction point where the Orca is waiting. Carry him into the ship and lower him down where Angela wants. Then, you collapse into a seat.

_Ten minutes of meaningful movement before your muscles lock up._

It's not just exhaustion that makes you too weak to stand. 

The others keep a wide berth from you on the flight back to Gibraltar. Maybe it's your silence. Maybe it's the look on your face, whatever that might be. Maybe it's the way you watch Angela work on Hanzo, pale and bloody beneath the biotic glow, as though it's your own life that's on the line. Because in every way that matters, it is.

The ship touches down at Watchpoint and Hanzo is whisked away to the medbay.

You know you must look bad when Angela, stone cold professional that she is, touches you lightly on the shoulder before she leaves and says, "Get Lucio to check on that wrist. That's an order," and her voice is soft despite the words. She adds, even softer, "After that, go wash up and get some rest. He won't be out of surgery for hours."

As usual, you listen to the orders that you have to and ignore the ones you don't. You let Lucio heal the fracture. You go to your room and wash Hanzo's blood from your hands, from under your nails, although the memory clings to you no matter how hard you scrub. You abandon your ruined clothes on the floor of the bathroom, clothe yourself in the first couple things you grab from your dresser, and head straight for the medbay.

You sit in the empty room where you know Hanzo will be after surgery. Claim the chair by the bed. Fall into an exhausted sleep, even through the haze of grief and terror.

_An hour to fall unconscious._

Now, the window of opportunity has closed.

Now, you must ask yourself. Have you done enough? Have you given it your all? Have you done everything in your power to ensure Hanzo's survival? You don't think you have. Not by a long shot. You could've pulled him back under cover. Could've found another way, a better way, any way but this one. Could've been faster, stronger, braver than you are. Could've saved him before he was forced to save you.

Have you done enough? Have you ever? 

In all honesty, you don't even know if you can. You aren't like Hanzo, who gives everything he has so easily. You are selfish, Jesse McCree, and you have been all your life. You've always been one to take rather than give.

At first, you thought it was a difference in upbringing. Hanzo, who had always been given everything, could afford to be generous to others, while you, who'd never had anything handed to him, were fully justified in being a selfish bastard.

Even with all your skill at lying, you couldn't fool yourself with that excuse for long. After all, Hanzo _did_ have everything taken away from him, and even afterwards he remained the exact same honorable, self-sacrificing person he'd always been. On the other hand, the more _you_ gain in life, the more you seem to jealously guard the things you have.

Are you selfish enough to make Hanzo one of those things?

Are you going to stifle him in your greedy hold? Or can you resist the urge to contain him, the way you could never contain all the lakes and rivers of your childhood, in a futile attempt to make him entirely your own? Is there any chance your love will make him stronger rather dragging him down?

Could someone like you love Hanzo Shimada the way he deserves? Could you ever?

When you snap awake at his bedside some indeterminate time later and see him already sitting up, smiling bemusedly at you through the painkillers, you realize the answer is _yes_. 

Yes, you can love him the way he deserves — and if not now, then someday. You know you can, just as surely as you know how to swim. Because you want to more than anything.

"Are you alright?" he asks you, ridiculously, as though he wasn't the one shot in the head, as though he doesn't still bear the wound and the bloody bandage to show for it.

"Don't give me none of that," you say. You want to reach out and touch him but part of you is still scared that he'll break under your hands. You settle for staring. "You could've died in London."

"I could have," he agrees, with a slow blink. "But here I am." He cocks his head and stares back at you with open curiosity. You think Angela must have doped him up on something good because he's normally never so expressive. It took you months to learn to read him. "Why are you here?" Hanzo's question contains zero suspicion or accusation, but you tense all over anyway. As usual, he's managed to strike exactly at the weakest point to your heart, even if he doesn't realize it. Not yet, at least.

But he will, you think, with renewed conviction. You're going to tell him. If not now, then someday.

"Why are you here?" Hanzo repeats, a note of impatience in his voice.

"I was worried about you," you say.

He thinks on this, then nods, though still with a faintly puzzled air. "I'm fine," he says. "Dr. Ziegler has fixed it."

You smile helplessly. "Let's hope she won't have to again for a long time."

He makes a vague sound in the back of his throat. It might be agreement. It might be a stifled yawn. Even the brief conversation seems to have exhausted him. You can see his eyes beginning to drift shut.

"Go back to sleep, Hanzo."

You can see him fighting it. "Have more," he mumbles. "Something to say to you." His brow furrows with the effort to remember and your heart aches just a little more at the sight.

You swallow. "Don't worry," you say. "I ain't going nowhere. I'll still be here when you wake up." You finally give into the urge to touch him. You reach out to hold his hand. When he squeezes back, your breath stops for a moment.

You don't remember a single damn thing about your training. But it doesn't matter. He's here with you.

"Talk to me," Hanzo says, words slurring together as he starts sinking back into sleep.

"Sure," you say. "What do you want me to talk about, hon?"

"Anything. A story about you. Something I don't know."

You want to kiss him so badly, but it can wait. There'll be time later. All the time in the world. For now, you can tell him a story. For now, you can go back to the beginning. 

"When I was a kid," you say, "no one ever taught me how to swim."

**Author's Note:**

> more unbetaed weirdness from yours truly  
> if I ever add to this, it'll be hanzo comparing mccree to a desert fire, obviously (;  
> critique and feedback always welcome  
> thanks for reading folks


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